Dragon's Lair

Share.

Stick this in the "Now We've Seen Everything" category -- a classic laser disk game on the GBC.

By Craig Harris

Dragon's Lairis one of those high-points in the history of videogames. The original game, released in arcades in 1983, broke new ground with its departure from the normal action games of its time -- instead of controlling low-resolution spaceships or blocky human characters (this was 1983 after all), you actually had limited control over feature-film animation, directing the action with a joystick and button. It was the first of its kind, spawning clones using similar technology, as well as a follow-up (Space Ace) and a sequel (Dragon's Lair II). Since the game relied on actual video for its gameplay, there's no way any videogame system could pull off what was going on in Dragon's Lair -- but with improved home technology came the ability to reproduce the laser disc classic. And now, you can get the game on almost any system using the video-friendly CDROM format.

But you probably would have never imagined that you'd be able to take an accurate version of the game on the road -- and that's where Digital Eclipse and Capcom are going to wow you. The system that's 12 years old has performed the near-unthinkable...Dragon's Lair -- the arcade version -- on the Game Boy Color.

Features

Full-motion animation based on the arcade

More than twenty scenes

Multilingual

Only for Game Boy Color

The story, provided through amazing animation directed by Don Bluth (Secret of Nimh), sends Dirk the Daring on an adventure to rescue the kidnapped Daphne. She's being held captive by a very dumpy-looking dragon -- and it's up to the knight to make his way through the castle, avoiding death by tricks and traps along the way.

The evolution of Game Boy Color gaming pretty much dictated bringing the laser disk game to the system -- you've seen title sequences and cutscenes using full-motion video on the handheld, so why not produce a game using nothing but? And why not the most famous videoclip videogame of all time? Digital Eclipse has pulled it off -- it's spotty in places, and the game's missing a few scenes of animation here and there...but for what's expected of the Game Boy Color hardware, the development team produced a real winner. What's amazing isn't just the technical feat of the Game Boy Color performing the tasks necessary in bringing all the animation from the classic arcade -- it's the fact that Dragon's Lair actually works as a portable game. It's an incredible technical demo, sure, but it's also an excellent pick-up-and-play title.

But we do have to offer the necessary disclaimer -- Dragon's Lair isn't an action game in the traditional sense. You don't control the knight, only direct the action at set points in the animation. For example, you'll watch Dirk wander into a room -- all of a sudden, his feet are attacked by skeletons. It's up to you to tap "up" at this point, otherwise the skeletons will take the knight down and it's one life gone. Essentially the idea is to keep the video going by performing the set control pad and button functions that have been locked in place in each scene. But half the challenge is learning where to push a button and which button to push -- it's a title that depends solely on trial-and-error and memorization for its gameplay. It's also a very finite game design, with about twenty different scenes to play through -- if you were to learn every scene and play the game from start to finish, it'd be a short ten-minute adventure.

But the game is so challenging and demanding that to get to the point of a flawless play, you literally have to play the game a bunch of hours in order to learn the timing and directions needed to get through it. And since the game has no continues and only five lives per game, the challenge is incredibly tough. There are issues where button presses just don't seem to register, but this accurately mimics the same problems of every conversion ever produced.

But of course, you can't ignore how good the game looks on the screen. The motions are smooth and the graphics are quite vibrant using the limitations of the GBC. But in order to smoosh the laser disk onto the system, sacrifices had to be made. Animations were edited and repainted in places, sound is now limited to MIDI fanfares and the occasional digitized sample, and some scenes were cut for size reasons. Dragon's Lair purists will find faults all over the place, but you have to give credit where credit is due -- the Game Boy Color was never designed for this type of game, and the heart of the game is definitely sandwiched onto a four-meg cartridge for an 8-bit system.

The Verdict

It's extremely difficult to rate a game like Dragon's Lair because of its overall gameplay limitations. But the heck with it -- the Game Boy Color version is a stunner. Sure, you can get the near-flawless DVD version for the same price as this cartridge, but it works so well as a portable title that I can't help but recommend it. If anything, you can impress your friends with a hot-looking portable game, all the while secretly enjoying the twitch memorization gameplay. A conversion of Space Ace is the next logical step, but I honestly think that game would be better suited for the more capable Game Boy Advance hardware...and I'm all for that.